<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Not Particularly Reassuring by CloudDreamer</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387416">Not Particularly Reassuring</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer'>CloudDreamer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dr Carmilla's A+ Parenting, Recently Mechanized Marius, teeth?, vampire off her shits what sins will she commit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:28:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>966</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A probably inaccurate depiction of Marius's mechanization. Based off the mental image of Drunk Mad Science.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Stowaways' Shenanigans</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Not Particularly Reassuring</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On a certain planet, in a certain system far away, the Toy Soldier disappeared for a week. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. It returned with a plastic baggie of teeth in tow. Also not particularly unusual. The fact those teeth were all canines sharpened to a razor point wasn’t as standard but not unheard of. The confused and more than slightly traumatized man it’d carried in its arms raised a couple of questions. The message it’d been given while out, however, was mostly unprecedented. </p><p>“I Saw The Good Doctor!” it said, dropping the man on the ground. “She Says Hello!” </p><p>Nastya, who sat perched on a box of ammunition playing her violin for the Aurora, froze. Jonny was carting in the groceries, and he dropped everything at its words.</p><p>“What was that?” Ashes hollered from down the hall. </p><p>“Probably nothing,” Jonny called back. “TS just brought some stranger and said some ominous shit. Normal Tuesday.”</p><p>“It Is Very Much Something. She Gave Me Some Of Her Teeth As A Present And Also Proof Because She Said You Would Be In Denial. She Said She Isn’t Angry But She Is Disappointed, Jonny.”</p><p>“Nastya, how fast do you reckon you can get us out of here?” </p><p>She didn’t reply. Her grip tightened around her violin, just on the edge of breaking it. They didn’t talk about Carmilla. They avoided the planets they’d visited with her. They hadn’t been in a million miles of the place where Jonny’d flushed her into the galaxy. The closest they came to talking about her was when they sung, and even then, she was only ever an implication. A story. Not a person who could come to life at any time, reach into your cooling body and rip out any trace of humanity, replace it with metal and wires all through you. Nastya would say her blood ran cold at the idea she could be near, but her blood was always cold. Always freezing her from the inside out. </p><p>“I’m coming down!” Ashes responded. Tim and Brian came with them, and Ivy followed shortly after. </p><p>When Ivy arrived, she looked at everyone’s faces, the sharpened teeth the Toy Soldier carried, and then at the not-unconscious man on the floor. She crouched beside him and examined his arms. </p><p>“There’s a 99% chance he’s one of us. What happened, TS?” </p><p>“The Good Doctor Said She Got Wasted. Then She Made This Sound And Gesture: Whew.” </p><p>“Why are we still here?” Tim demanded. “Why are we not gone already?” </p><p>“It’s really her?” Brian asked. </p><p>“Give me the teeth,” Ivy ordered, and the Toy Soldier handed them over.</p><p>“Can I Please Have Them Back? They Are Very Good!” </p><p>“No,” Jonny said, at the same time Ashes said, “Only if the rest of us never ever have to see them.” </p><p>Jonny glared, but the Toy Soldier was perking up like it’d taken Ashes words as a promise, rather than his. Ivy opened up the bag and picked one out, looking it over. She licked it, and it’s sharp edges left her tongue bleeding. </p><p>“Unless there’s another vampire out there who knows enough to mechanize people, has the exact same dental records, and has identical tastes in alcohol yeah. It’s her.“ </p><p>“Fuck,” the man said, getting to his feet. His clothes were stained with more blood than there was in a human body, and there were fang marks on his neck. “Who are you guys? What happened?” </p><p>“You died,” Brian said. “A drunk immortal vampire scientist brought you back with a mechanical body part. She did the same for all of us, and it was an incredibly traumatic experience. If you’re lucky, you just had your ability to die removed without any affect on your pain sensitivity. I’m the pilot. Nastya over there is our navigator, and when she’s over her panic attack, we’ll get us as far away from this planet as possible because we’re all pants-shitingly terrified of her. We haven’t seen her since someone, who we’re pretty sure is Jonny, flushed her out an airlock.” </p><p>“Someone flip Brian’s switch,” Tim said, grabbing a grenade from his pocket and fidgeting with it. He threw it from one hand to the other. The man looked from Mechanism to Mechanism. </p><p>“Fuck,” the man said. “That’s… a lot? What do you mean, if I’m lucky?” </p><p>“Fuck is right, which is why Nastya really needs to chart a course to get us out of here,” Jonny said. Nastya didn’t respond. He walked over to her and slapped her. She exhaled. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. She didn’t need to breathe, but it was a force of habit. A rhythm to set her thoughts to. </p><p>“If she wanted to catch us, there’s an 88% chance she would’ve done so already,” Ivy commented. Her tone of voice was casual, uncannily casual. Something betrayed her unease. Was it her hands? No, they were still. Was it her shoulders? She pushed them straight. Was it her eyes? Maybe. She stopped examining every crack, every scar, on the Aurora’s surface. Each time she fixed something, a different part of her fell out of line.  </p><p>“That’s not particularly reassuring,” he replied, looking at his arm in a new light. Jonny could feel the sound of his heart in his chest. He was on the edge of reaching in and ripping it out, make the damned thing force its way back in slowly. The thought of her close itched, made him want to shoot something — shoot her. Shoot her till she stayed dead. If she was this close, if she knew, then she could’ve found them at any time. They had never been safe. They would never die, and they would never be safe from her. </p><p>“It’s not supposed to be,” Ivy said. “Welcome home.”<br/></p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>